There are no limits on foreign currency brought into Portugal, but visitors are advised to declare the amount carried. That proves to the Portuguese Customs Office that the currency came from outside the country, and it allows you to take out the same amount or less.

EURO CURRENCY
The euro, the new single European currency, became the official currency of Portugal and 11 other countries on January 1, 1999, but not in the form of cash. On January 1, 2002, euro bank notes and coins were introduced. During a 2-month transition period, escudo notes, the old currency of Portugal, were withdrawn from circulation. The symbol of the euro is €; its official abbreviation is EUR.

ENTRY REQUIREMENTS
Visas are not needed by U.S., Canadian, Irish, Australian, New Zealand, or British citizens for visits of less than 3 months. You do need a valid passport unless you’re a citizen of another EU country (in which case, you need only an identity card, although we always recommend that you carry a passport anyway). Safeguard your passport in an inconspicuous, inaccessible place like a money belt. If you lose it, visit the nearest consulate of your native country as soon as possible for a replacement.

For information on how to get a passport, go to the “Fast Facts” section of this chapter—the websites listed provide downloadable passport applications as well as the current fees for processing passport applications. For an up-to-date country-by-country listing of passport requirements around the world, go the “Foreign Entry Requirement” Web page of the U.S. State Department at http://travel.state.gov/foreignentryreqs.html.

Portugal’s coastline stretches some 800km (496 miles). The country is bounded on the south and west by the Atlantic Ocean and on the north and east by Spain. Continental Portugal totals some 55,000 sq. km (21,450 sq. miles); its Atlantic islands, including Madeira and the Azores, add 1,935 sq. km (755 sq. miles). The Azores lie some 1,130km (701 miles) west of Lisbon (Lisboa), the capital of the country. Portugal’s population is about 10.3 million. Portugal has four major rivers—the Minho in the north, which separates the country from Spain; the Douro, also in the north, known for vineyards that produce port wine; the Tagus, which flows into the Atlantic at Lisbon; and the Guadiana, in the southeast. Part of the Guadiana forms an eastern frontier with Spain.

LISBON & THE COSTA DO SOL
Portugal’s capital is on hilly terrain beside one of the finest harbors in Europe—the estuary of the Tagus (Tejo) River. Within a few miles of the city limits, the beaches of the Costa do Sol cater to residents of the capital, who easily reach them by bus and train. Until the development of beaches in the Algarve, those on the Costa do Sol were among the most crowded and glamorous in the country. The best-known resorts include Estoril and Cascais, long playgrounds of the wintering wealthy.

Here’s a list of some of the more enchanting artifacts and handcrafts produced in Portugal:

• Arraiolos Carpets: The Moorish traditions that once prevailed in the town of Arraiolos, where the carpets are still manufactured, inspired their intricate stitching. Teams of embroiderers and weavers work for many days, using pure wool in combinations of petit point with more widely spaced ponto largo cross-stitches. The resulting depictions of garlands of fruit and flowers (a loose interpretation of French Aubusson car-pets) and animals scampering around idealized gardens (a theme vaguely inspired by carpets from Persia and Turkey) are some of the most charming items for sale in Portugal. The size of the piece and the intricacy of the design determine the price, which is often less than half what you’d pay in North America. If you can’t make it to Arraiolos, you’ll find the carpets for sale at outlets in Lisbon.

• Horseback Riding Along the Coast: The Atlantic Ocean is the livelihood of many Portuguese and the inspiration for a number of rides along its beaches. An American company, Equitour, offers these trek. In addition to beach riding, there is trekking through olive groves, vineyards, pine forests, and lagoons. Seeing this beautiful country from the back of a well-trained, eventempered Lusitano is a rewarding experience.

For generations, much of what the English-speaking world knew about Portugal came from the reports that wine merchants brought back to Britain from the wineries of the Douro Valley. Today Portugal is famous throughout the world for its port wines, and many parts of central and northern Portugal are covered with well-tended vines sprouting from intricately laid-out terraces that descend verdant hillsides.

• Port: Known for decades as the Englishman’s wine, port was once the drink uncorked for toasting in England. In gentlemen’s clubs, vintage port (only 1% of all port made) was dispensed from a crystal decanter. Later, when the English working classes started drinking less superior port in Midland mill towns, they often spiked it with lemon. Today the French consume almost three times the amount of port that the British do. Some 40 varieties of grape go into making port. Made from grapes grown in rich lava soil, port today is either vintage or blended, and ranges from whites to fullbodied tawnies and reds. The latter is often consumed at the end of a meal with cheese, fruit, or nuts. You can visit a port-wine lodge to learn more about port—and, more important, to taste it. The best lodges to visit are concentrated in Vila Nova de Gaia, a suburb of Porto across the Douro from Porto’s commercial center.

• Mosteiro dos Jerónimos (Belém): More than any other ecclesiastical building in Portugal, this complex represents the wealth that poured into Lisbon from the colonies during the Age of Discovery. Begun in 1502 in Belém, the seaport near the gates of Lisbon, it’s the world’s most distinctive Manueline church. Richly ornate and unlike any other building in Europe, it has, among other features, columns carved in patterns inspired by the rigging of Portuguese caravels laden with riches from Brazil and India.

• Museu da Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian (Lisbon): Its namesake was an Armenian oil czar, Calouste Gulbenkian (1869–1955), whose fortune derived from a 5% royalty on most of the oil pumped out of Iraq. His eclectic collections of Asian and European sculpture, paintings, antique coins, carpets, and furniture are on display in a modern compound in a lush garden.